Briefings - 1137. page

China’s distinguished writer Yu Qiuyu wrote an article titled “advice to the students’ parents with tears,” asking the parents who lost their children in the earthquake to quit petitioning so as not to be used by overseas anti-China forces. Following the earthquake, lots of attention have been focused on demanding an investigation of the substandard construction of schools. Yu says in his article that the students’ parents are very emotional. Therefore, those media that could not find anti-China excuses started once again anti-China propaganda. The article caused an up-roar among the Internet users who felt it inappropriate. However, China’s Information Office of the State Council required major websites to post the article, while deleting related discussion massages.

Xinhua reports: A spokesperson of the Korea People’s Army at Panmunjomong said on June 9 that it’s impossible for the Korean military to give up nuclear deterrence under the current situation when the U.S. and South Korea are actively preparing for war against (North) Korea. The statement is responding to the recent talk between the defense secretaries of the United States and South Korea.

China held its annual college entrance exam on June 7 and 8 in most regions. It is the largest government-organized exam in the world. This year, the number of participating high school students reached 10.5 million, the highest in history. They are competing for 5.9 million college student spots which is a 5 percent increase from last year. There were a total of 2500 test regions, 8700 centers, 360,000 test sites, and 1 million supervision staff nationwide participated.

The latest research results released by AlixPartners, an international consulting firm, suggest that as the value of the yuan and the price of raw materials have increased, the cost of China’s auto parts have gone up 16 percent. Foreign buyers are thus losing interest in China’s auto parts market because of the rise in cost and are gradually reducing their orders. It was estimated that China will lose US$16 trillion in auto parts orders by 2010.

The country’s first inland nuclear power plant is under construction in Tongshan County of Xian Ning City in Hubei Province. Built by the Hubei Nuclear Power Corporation, the plant is expected to be completed within the next five years. To relieve the power shortage in Hubei Province, the power plant will have a capacity exceeding 10 million kilowatts with an annual supply in 80 trillion kilowatts. Total investment in the project is 50 trillion yuan (US$7.2 trillion).

On May 27, 2008 representatives of Chinese democracy activists visited the Chinese Consulate General in New York wtih donations for victims of the Sichuan earthquake. The Consulate staff refused the check without explanation.

The donations were colleted in an earlier fundraising event held by the Chinese Democracy Party in front of the Chinese Consulate calling for donations from Chinese democracy activists to help victims of the Sichuan earthquake.